with my black blue splash red wizard deck i had i beat psycho tog affinity and tooth and nail with easy mode and (sleigh) this deck would eather go to time i end up wining or be a draw the deck was just time-wasting deck
+TheManaSource Well, I'll have you know my break didn't start until 2 blocks after that. when guildpact came in (i think that was the last prerelease i did pre innstrad block)
No, I also "took a break" but that was down to the group i played with imploding and not being bothered with spending money on something I wasnt using.
@TheManaSource, Hi my favorite decks of all time are: 4) 1997 The original Palinchron deck designed by Blake Quelle. 3) 1999 Parallax deck using the Urza's block 2) 2002 the original Madness deck that competed against psychatog 1) 1997 the original 'sligh' deck using the tempest block
Why did he not bring up the vintage flash hulk combo that literally wins before your opponent has drawn their first card by playing gemstone caverns, tapping for blue, discarding a spirit guide to flash hulk then tutor one carrion feeder, four disciples and any amount of cmc 0 artifact creatures which you instant sac to kill your opponent.
+emanuel nelsson vedung the gemstone caverns version is literally all combo pieces and is far less consistent than the kiki version or the disciple version.
Except the gemstone version had an average win rate of turn .75, half the deck were different ways of getting the combo. You could literally spend 10min just in the mulligan phase due to cards that let you do a free mulligan.
You don't need Feeder. You just got 4 Disciple and the rest was 5+ 0 mana 0/0 creatures. When you were on the draw, you just had a Hearth Sliver and 4 Virulent Slivers to poison 12 on turn 1
So where is Birdemic, the deck in which Storm Crow showed up for the first time? The deck was so brutal 70% of standard players conceded to the power of birds Oh wait, i messed something up...
Flash Hulk had another version that technically could win vefore the gsme even started. So, yes. Even if you got a Turn one consistent win with Exodia AND YOU WENT FIRST, Flash Hulk could STILL win before turn order even technically started.
@@User__Not__Found In Yugioh, Instant Win Conditions doesn't even enter "the stack" (in Yugioh terms, doesn't start a chain) so if you happen to draw the 5 pieces of Exodia in your starting hand, if we apply the Yugioh logic of Instant Win conditions to Magic, not even Flash Hulk has a chance. Instant Win conditions just happen, instantly of course, and no response is allowed.
exodia does not trigger. so it does not start a chain. you just need to reveal the pieces to win the game. btw, exodia decks always sucked, not even one could pull up a consistent build to draw full exodia in a way that does not die to a single ash blossom or droll&lock bird.
funny I was heavy in tournament magic from odyssey to kamigawa and I remember that the biggest complaints on affinity was that the average player could spend 50 bucks and build a competitive deck and there 450 to 500 dollar deck was getting beat. I thought it was so funny watching the magic elites get butt hurt. and they were the folks that left the game. they wanted to dominate through money not skill. and as I recall big red burn completely destroyed affinity at worlds. and it was just as cheap of a build.
+Charles Allen This is so true. I did love that decks with mostly cheap rares, uncommons and commons were affordable and if you wanted to actually win, you could. Financially, magic was in a good spot unlike these days.. Zzzzz
Only affinity decks were cheap, nothing else, so no, magic wasn't affordable, they just couldn't calculate the impact of the cards being released. The meta was almost affinity-only, and the previous metas almost had no artifacts. Affinity meta was just lame, and a lot of people stopped playing there (I did).
Ehm, you are not talking about the skullclamp affinity like he does in the list guys.... Skullclamp was banned like 2 months after it come out and was just a card that should never been printed (it got banned in extended too, the old modern) So yeah affinity totally deserve to be there, you don't know the nightmares of that few months.
Off top of my head I remember smokestack deck , the tangled wire deck and pyschotog deck as being rough but to me the toughest will always be winters orb/ icy manipulator deck.
Necropotence and icy/orb lock taught me how to play competitively, by far the 5 color green deck with armageddon/tradewind rider lock i played back in the day was the most powerful deck i built. Pyschatog was a fun deck too. I stopped playing years ago but pretty sure my brother still has Affinity put together.
Hope you enjoy the video! This begins my road to redemption! This week we'll be releasing videos every single day in addition to our normal spoiler coverage for Shadows Over Innistrad. Thanks for being understanding. TOP 10 HYPE! ^.^
+TheManaSource Great stroll, Wedge! I vividly remember facing some of these classic decks--even piloted the Fires of Yavimaya one myself. I pushed through the Academy days, but my "break" after Black Summer lasted almost ten years. Now I'm one of the old guard at FNMs, regaling the young ones with tales of survival and homebrewing like I'm Aemon Targaryen at the Wall. Honestly, I must say, it's great to be playing Magic again.
Protean hulk is still a deck (in modern) , Footsteps of the goryo on the hulk-> Get viscera seer+ body double which copies hulk -> Grab mog fanatic and reveillark. Sac reveillark to get back a body double which copies reveillark. Infinite damage.
OMG!!! YOU BROUGHT SO MANY AMAZING MEMORIES THAT FILL ME WITH JOY BY WATCHING THIS AMAZING VIDEO !!! MAGIC!!!! MAGIC!!!! SO MUCH MAGIC!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS MOMENT!!!
Thank you for putting up Trix (UB NecroDonate), MonoU Palinchron HighTide. Also worth mentioning is Psychatog dominance in Legacy, Vintage, Standard, and Extended all at the same time. Other mentions: Stax, Survival of the Fittest
Great list. For a couple honorable mentions here's what comes to my mind: Faeries, Psychatog with Upheaval, U/R Delver w/Treasure Cruise, and at least one or two Storm decks throughout history. Also the dreaded Rebels
Though obviously not as catastrophic in any way as any of these decks, I remember having major issues with Abzan all throughout Tarkir block standard. As opposed to the other decks like mono-red, devotion, dragons, monsters, sultai whip, which all had exploitable weaknesses, Abzan in all its variants only ever had strengths due to all of its cards just being really good and incredibly varied. Tasigur, Charm, Roc, Elspeth, Caryatid, Courser, Anafenza, Urborg, and am I forgetting something? Oh yeah. Skill Rhino - because look at all that skill you have, playing three Rhinos in a row and winning. Mental scary to play against!
If you didn't know back in the late 90's, early 00's Extended was what Legacy is today. Then they changed it to the new format you're referring to and everyone hated it because they preferred the old format of Extended.
It's pretty obvious all these people who think Eldrazi should be on this list never played during Cawblade format... a LOT of people stopped playing magic for a couple of months because you either built the deck or lost.
Nighthawk98 or never played before cawblade. lets make a list of all cards emergency banned after they stopped using the reserve list. ill be waiting for a while i think...
This is my 5th time watching this video. It became a tradition to remember the history of magic of the most powerful decks it makes me want to make current versions of these decks just to see for fun if they are still viable in certain formats wherever they might be legal in some of which have already proved themselves in eternal formats like legacy or vintage. It would be sweet to see if the list would be updated because of 2019.
I took a break from Saviors of Kamigawa to Time spiral :(... Ravnica is my favorite non Dominarian Plane and Ravnica block is my favorite non dominarian block. Kamigawa killed it for me.
Yes I am meaning that Of all the planes which aren't Dominaria Ravnica is my favorite. The order of planes Must be Dominaria > Ravnica > Rath > Serra's Relm > Innistrad > Mirrodin > Phyrexia > Tarkir > Zendikar > Theros > New Phyrexia > Lorwyn > Shandalar > Ulgothra > Rabidah
I knew about magic for a while before I started playing. I got handed a few cards from friends, but never gave it much thought. This was around jr high or the beginning of high school. When I graduated and went to college, I found a group of people who played magic, and I got into the game to play with them. This was around 2007/2008, and I remember the Lorowyn/Morningtide mini sets being around, but it was the Shards of Alara set that really hooked me. I loved artifacts, and Esper combo control was something I enjoyed playing, even if it wasn't competitive basically at all (at least when I played it). I started going back in time around this point, looking to get older cards to play more expansive decks and I found Ravager affinity. It was fun, and definitely the kind of deck that when I pulled it out my friends would kind of roll their eyes and be like, "oh, this deck again". Anyway, I played up until about Innistrad when my interest began to wane. A lot of factors contributed, but I mostly just felt I wasn't good enough and that I spent more time being frustrated than having fun, so I decided it was time to stop. I kept my collection for a while though, and played off and on, but it was mostly things like EDH/Commander and things like that. I sold my cards later, used the money (worth way less than what it was worth because people suck and people always expect insane price gouging when they buy in bulk) plus a small loan from a friend to buy a PC that I built myself :D I built the PC to play PC games, though I ended up not, similar to how I have a PS4 with games that I've purchased but not played. I might get back into the card stuff though. I might not play, but I remember having fun collecting them. I love the rush of opening packs and seeing what you get inside. I've been curious about the idea of branching into a bunch of different card games and making a UA-cam channel where I open packs and such. I think it could be fun, even if it never gets popular.
Ben Rubin's Sligh deck was a nice example of the burn deck. I am also partial to the ol counter/burn. Topped off when Isochron Sceptre came out. There was a while it was very frustrating unless you were running counter burn Isos.
I played Extended during the Affinity Era, Green would play 4 Oxidize in the maindeck and multiple Naturalizes in the Sideboard just because the chance of playing vs Affinity was so high In fact there were Affinity decks that would do the same just so they would win the mirror matchup it was truly awful
uh, recasting time sprial wasn't the way mana was generated in that deck. You either casted Dream Halls to cast Mind Over Matter or simply use academy's mana to cast mind over matter hard castthen start discarding cards to untap Academy, stroke yourself or windfall to draw more cards, windfall into another stroke into your hand, then finally be able to discard enough cards to stroke your opponent into card draw loss.
Welcome to comments of 2022. I played the Tolarian Academy deck at a NY state championship in 1998. I finished 8th out of a top 8 that was exclusively academy decks. Surprised you didn't mention Mind over Matter as part of the deck, i thought it was a fairly big piece of the combo. Or maybe that's why i only finished 8th lol. I recall from that time as well my friend had a fully powered Psychatog deck which basically won all of the Type 1 tournaments for months on end. Thing was brutal.
Flash hulk could actually win on the opponent's first upkeep if you went 2nd. Gemstone Caverns + spirit guide (either) = 2 mana for flash so I win before the first main phase starts. This was the price we paid for the removal of all functional errata (before that, Flash just said to reduce the cost by 2). Right alongside that one was the super 'fun' voltaic key + time vault. Kind of an interesting footnote that also serves as context and should have been included.
Psiqueatog and The Rock where a pain in the ass back in day in Extended. I also remember giving a hard time to people during Mirrodin standard (funnily enough, I started playing with Mirrodin) with my Krark Clan Ironworks + Myr Incubator/Triskelion+Disciple of the Vault combo. Freaking Tooth and Nails (or Kiki-Jiki + Darksteel Colossus/similar bollocks huge creatures) where also a pain in the ass for quite a while.
Hey bro, thanks for the video! I subbed! Some ideas on your lighting situation if you care: uplighting is almost always bad. Natural lighting comes from above, think the sun or interior lights. The light on your right is way too hot, it's blowing out part of your shirt which says a lot. I'd recommend a soft box or some diffusing paper to help with that. Or just move it back 5-10 feet or so. Regardless, thanks for the upload and the great content!
I was a kid when Necropotence was The Beast. A local tournament player used to practice against me at our LGS. We played a ton of games, but I only beat him once, got lucky with my mono-red aggro deck, Viashino Sandstalker x3 FTW! Only won because he got screwed and I got perfect starting hand, dead before he could set up.
Part of the problem with Affinity was that the Skullclamp ban helped it more than it hurt it. Skullclamp was used by the decks trying to fight Affinity, so the ban hurt them as well, resulting in Affinity being more dominant after the ban then before.
+Samuel Newton and the channel fireball. zuran orb and Armageddon was fun also. and just for the memories here is a list of beautiful cards back when this is all we had. Ali from Cairo, Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Icy Manipulator, Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Orcish Oriflamme, Rukh Egg, Sol Ring, Timetwister, Time Vault, and Time Walk
+thomas downey Omg Chanball! :D GedoOrb was (mainly) after standard was created. Hell for its raw power Dingus Egg made the first restricted list. I once had my Atog/Vice (4 copy arts) lost to Lich.. I drew a Disenchant, and hit the Yoti.. this was for a Legs box during laaate Dark, I had never read Lich :( . If you would like some Geddon love... At the end of Urza block (4th was about to rotate out) I went 6-3 with Geddon and all that fat green (mainly rancor) and lost to the guy who won the PTQ. :D
Man that was a long time ago but I remember high tide came in to counter Academy decks and consistently beat it due to it's high control elements, academy decks were fairly impotent against it. Saga and tempest block were my favourite time to play MTG. Also the deck that I consistently hated going up against was Oath of Druids, that deck in each of it's versions were such a pain to deal with and one of the consistently stronger decks over it's lifespan.
Back in 2011 a friend taught me MTG and he had the skull clamp deck. It was his most brutal deck but he gave me some cards and as a noob I built a white/green angel elf deck that start beating him semi consistent. I felt so cool!
And just so you know, I really enjoy these videos. I am still a relatively new player since I've only played for a year and a half and have so much to learn. Out of all the UA-cam Magic players this channel is by far my favorite. Keep it up.
I believe there was a legacy (possibly extended) deck that could win on turn 0 with around a 30% chance (meaning you go first and just win through infinite mana infinite pings) and a 60% chance to win by turn 1. Its been several years since i've seen the actual deck but it did exist and that was pretty brutal.
+kitsunez the hulk disciple version didn't win the gp and it requires far more slots for it's combo pieces than the kiki version making it less consistent.
Having that many combo pieces dilutes the decks power and consistency, you end up drawing the 0 cmc artifacts and disciples instead of draw and counter spells. Having more slots available for draw spells and interactive spells makes it better vs control and smooths the draws out.
I started playing mtg during the caw-blade format at KG in Brooklyn. That deck was definitely a pain to go against as a new player but it never discourage me from playing. I played mono red kuldotha rebirth LOL
+cfusionpm probably only because the deck isn't banned out yet. Personally, I've always been a fan of hating Standard's Faeries and Modern's Blazing Infect (though tbh, I
+Josh Stanton Yes but that is such a specific case. It does beat Shops, however almost every other Vintage deck shits all over it. The Eldrazi deck is GOOD against shops, that's why it wins. People forget that even though things are in different formats they can still beat other decks they are more powerful than. If eldrazi was really that good we would already see it in Vintage and Legacy, but we don't.
+Ryan Smith It only beats shops because Eldrazi is good against that deck. We aren't seeing Eldrazi play in Vintage or Legacy. Against ANY other vintage deck Eldrazi gets laughably shit on
American Top_gamer Having a T2 win doesn't mean its consistent. Its an extremely low chance of happening. There is a guy on reddit who has a T2 win with Hedron Alignment. Does that mean its broken?
I remember "Academy Genius" as I heard it refered to, but it was never a problem for my "Academy Control" deck as long as I got the counter drop on them or back to basics down. Though the "Academy Genius" deck was broke as hell, it was one trick pony that could be stopped and regularly defeated.
That's what I came here to hear about. Having played during the Urza block, though, Academy was MUCH more dominant, even though it wasn't as fast (unless you got the Academy - 4 Mox Diamond hand). Long is ten times as strong as anything else on this list, though.
+clayton leal Actually in that confined setup that would actually be pretty cool i think. Though I fear that - a: these games would not be as entertaining since these decks don't require much of strategy; and - b: that still among these very powerful decks one would just steamroll each of the others, because they were only strong in their respective environment back then.
I'm not sure if other players had problems but around my part of Wisconsin there was a Vintage deck called Keeper that absolutely destroyed everyone for a good six months, probably longer. The deck seemed to have an answer for everything at any given time. I seem to remember anycraze calling it one of the most powerful vintage decks ever built.
I also thought the Fluctuator / Living Death deck was so broken back in 98-99ish. Cycle everything into your graveyard, cast Living Death and your opponent has one turn to wrath the board or they're done.
Emrakul, The Aeons Bored "in the format"? Which format is this list limited to and where is it advertised? All I can see is "Most Powerful [...] Decks Of All Time". And every single deck in this list is basically a JOKE when compared to ANY deck I've mentioned, so...
Right after Urza's Legacy was released, I built a green/blue deck called elfstroke, that turned my arena league bracket into a bloodbath. I combo'd intruder alarm with greater good, and sac'd racor'd weatherseed treefolk for draw power, and used my elves/birds of paradise to generate mana until I could draw my thoptor squadron, and go infinite. I used stroke of genius as my kill. about 80% of the time, I had a 4th turn kill combo running. I never made it into the arena league major tournaments, primarily because the top 10 players in my bracket wouldn't come anywhere near me with that deck.
Post-mirrodin Hulk flash was usually an even faster combo than the one you outlined. You found 4 Disciple of the Vault, 4 Phyrexian Marauder, and 4 Shifting Wall. The marauder and the wall immediately die to state-based effects since x=0, and then without passing priority your disciples put 32 damage on the stack.
+IVIaskerade Even faster. If you had a spirit guide and a gemstone caverns in your opening hand, as well as flash and hulk, it's gg on the first draw step.
I started off when it first began with alpha. the channel/fireball decks were the first dominate decks to win on turn one no matter what. the next dominate decks were the goblin decks. it wasn't until stasis decks that brains over took them all to the current wave of combination wins.
There’s a few big ones that happened recently that ate some bans - aetherworks marvel, temur energy, blue white flash, bg delerium and Ramunap Red all saw at least one ban. First standard bans since caw blade, worth a look.
As an aside, the tooth and nail deck from Mirrodin standard had a lot to do with skull clamp getting banned. It out performed affinity for a while before the banning Affinity had far more long term impact across more formats, it also caused another round of bannings, but I remember "elf and nail" quite well and feared it more than affinity at the time
+ido m But its exactly what the video is about. Clickbait is the intent to deceive to get views. I'm not deceiving anyone. All of my titles are ALWAYS what the videos are about. Every time. No deception.
+ido m Clickbait would be something like: "We listed the top ten MTG decks ever, and you WON'T BELIEVE which ones we chose" or something along those lines. Titles like the one on this video have existed since before clickbait ever did. Maybe you spend too much time on the internet, and I don't mean that as an insult. The web warps how we see thing. Try avoiding it for one full week. You won't believe how much this remedy can help you!
The Flash Hulk combo deck can work slightly differently, considerably more powerfully and even simpler than how you described it.You can consistently win before your opponent's first draw step by exiling a simian spirit guide or an elvish spirit guide at instant speed then manamorphose it into blue mana for Flash into Protean Hulk (Summoner's pact if necessary). sacrifice the hulk and go to search 4 disciple of the vault, 4 phyrexian marauder and 4 shifting wall. The marauders and the walls all die because they have no +1/+1 counters, triggering each disciple eight times, killing your opponent before their first turn at instant speed. I was not around during this period so that might not be the way most people played it but I was just pointing out that there was another way.
Maybe it was just my playgroup, but there was this deck that just wrecked back around Kamigawa block. It was U/R Land Destruction, and by using Eye to Nowhere/Boomerang along with stone rain it could lock you out of the game. This thing on the play was nuts. Turn two, they'd go, and bounce your land, then start destroying it until turn three. Finally they'd crush you with a powerful Magnivore. The deck was nuts. If you do another of these, I really hope you talk about it.
I will say this, during the Thopter Depths era there was a Midrange Zoo list that you could use that beat the crap out of Depths. Celestial Purge hurt almost every deck that was not also Zoo. I ran it at multiple local events and lost to random jank but absolutely crushed every Thopter Depths list I ran against. I always thought that was a trigger pulled too quickly.
My peak of MTG playing was during the Mirrodin block. I had a ton of fun with krark klan ironworks. Get a manavault and burn through an entire deck on turn 2. Ironworks+free cast affinity creatures+skullclamp+disciple of the vault. I still use aether vials. too good.
I was there on the front lines during Affinity; Wizards tried to self-balance the deck with cards like Hum of the Radix and Rebuking Ceremony - but since most Affinity decks hit there stride turn three and killed you turn four you were usually too late to do anything. I feel with cards like Fates Forgotten, Unravel the Aether and Dismember, Affinity wouldn't have been so bad - but hindsight is 20/20 and all that....
My brother once had a deck which put 1/1 for tapping an elf into play and another card which untaps it for 2 Mana. I always quit playing when he had a third card which gave 1 mana per elf for infinite tokens with an ability loop.
i'm just coming back to magic after last playing the mirrodin block. despite what you say, i had good fun playing my broodstar affinity at the time, i stopped because the block that followed was less interesting and shortly after the more 'modern' print was trialed and unappealing to me. i wish i could find some vintage / legacy players near me to dust off my old frogmites haha
One deck that i thought was a top contender for its time was Jund in the Alara/Zen Standard. Everything from Maelstrom Pulse, to Bloodbraid Elf, Broodmate Dragon, Terminate, Bolt. It was so good.
@TheManaSource. What about the Cadaverous Bloom deck. Prosperity, City of Solitude, which prevents players from countering anything you do. You could do a ridiculous Drain Life with the combo of those 3 cards.
I used to play Dragonstorm that deck was insane into anything but control, it was insanely fun i remember winning a 2-head giant by myself because my teammate disconnected on mtgo... My favorite combo deck is a deck i invented but it was honestly too slow i just really loved it, it ran very little lands and played rally the horde and in the web of war, bascially by turn 4-6 i could get all the land out of my deck cast rally the horde and swing for sometimes crazy amounts of damage, it was not amazing but i had never seen it run and i made it up, i didn't know anyone on mtgo who had a deck like it, that was a big deal to me and i loved it.
'98 / '99 was when I quit playing for quite a long time...Morale was indeed low...(I no longer play now due to the ridiculous cost of cards...but I still like to watch stuff on it.)
If you adjust for inflation the game is cheaper now, I remember having an extended Tinker deck around 2001 and it was around 400 USD, top deck with very expensive cards. Now I think a top modern decks goes over 700 easily.
Ha ha ha, you're 100% right, most of the (old school) players stopped playing around Mirrodin, including me. I hated that block. But they obviously didn't learn the lession, as they put up Kaladesh and AR, which is even more broken. There was also one Red burner Mirrodin\Dark Steel deck, that literally could kill you on turn 2-3. I don't remember the card name, but it involved some artifact combo for 1 or 0 drop, which made red mana on tap based on something (number of artifacts maybe?), which gives you XX mana on will. Then you use that to drop some red creature, which isn't too big, but it has "for 1 red mana, sacrifice an artifact and deal 2 damage to creature\player"? So, you drop lots of artifacts on turn 2 (which you could, due to "affinity"), then nuke the hell out of your opponent on turn 3 for like 20-30 damage. This is why lot of people, especially those who played from earlier blocks stopped playing. It wasn't about strategy and deck building anymore, it was about who plays first and who drops that card first. There were several BS decks like that that were virtually unstoppable. Oh yeah, and blue controls with Platinum Angel, and those "Tooth and Nail" decks that drop you two Darksteel Colossus on maybe turn 4 due to some mana ramps. Good luck, have fun.
As for the list, great! I'm surprised 'Tog wasn't on there but I guess that was more just a kick-ass archetype as opposed to something that warped formats beyond recognition.
prosperbloom was another deck that was dominant and caused squandered resources to get block banned. but since I've been playing since September 96, I remember most of these decks. insanity..... thanks for the blast from the past Wedge. see you next time
I do like that you attribute Memory Jar's ban to Combo Winter and not to Jar decks being busted. Yes, Jar was plenty busted back in the day, but the context was more important here. Academy had dominated for months, and Wizards thought they had fixed things when they banned out the cards that made that period of time absurd. But along came Memory Jar and Tinker in Urza's Legacy, and Randy Buehler and Eric Lauer decided to bring the deck to an Extended tournament. They both Top 8ed, and Wizards realized that Jar decks threatened to bring more of the same for the next few months, losing even more players than they had during Academy's legality. I also notice no mention of Mind Over Matter for Academy. Wasn't that how Academy decks generated the mana for Stroke in Standard?
I mean, I get what Cawblade did to standard, but I personally never had any problems with it. I dunno if the people I played with just did't know how to deal with Mass Polymorph, or if the deck just had a good matchup, but I generally just ran roughshod over them with a deck that probably cost around $20 without the fetches. Actually, I remember the time surrounding Caw Blade to be pretty good (for me). In that time frame, I went from playing Warp World, to Standard Dredge to (the aforementioned) Mass Polymorph. So many great, quirky decks.
This was an interesting video, great decks and cards showcased that I never heard about. Bottom line what I learned from this video and deck superiority, when in doubt -- ALWAYS go blue. Seriously I swear blue is the broken color in MTG. I've been playing casually since I was around 14. Didn't start playing standard competitive until Return to Ravnica - Theros, I learned so much more about the game, in addition to having been playing MTG installments in the XBOX 360 during that time as well... I'd have to say Esper control at the time was insanely ridiculous. That was a real power house deck, Elspeth generating the tokens, detention sphere, dimir based counters, just pure hand disruption, control, early game removals/kill spells, Ashiok, and counters paving the way for Elspeth. Then of course Theros with Khans, I'd have to say Abzan slayed mercilessly. Sidisi whip deck when running properly was nasty and hilariously fun to play. I'm not sure which deck ultimately shined here within that standard format. Now todays standard and meta I've been out for several months. Going to get back into it soon with Amonkhet coming, I forsee Amonkhet akin to the Theros block just more Egyptian flavored. Always enjoyed Egyptian mythos so yeah
Jund in Alara/Zendikar. Sure it could be beaten, there were many other decks which consistently made it into top 8, eg.: Naya, Vampires, Turbofog, some variations of Boros/RDW agro, and of course Gabriel Nassif's legendary 5-color control, but the problem for me was the overwhelming volume of Jund decks in play. Everybody and their mother ran a full set of Bloodbraid Elves, from there all you need is a solid serving of RB removal and damage spells, some persistent RBG creatures like Thrinax and Broodmate, and you are rolling Jund. While in high-tier tournaments expensive and powerful decks could hold their own, still over half of the decks being played were Jund. Where it got really egregious and disheartening was in low-tier/local/beginner tournaments, where younger players often ran off-meta decks or incomplete ones (missing fetch lands or having only 1-3 copies of expensive cards). There could easily be 6 Jund decks in top 8 in such a tourney, and it drove people away en masse. Tourney organizers tried to limit popular meta decks entering their beginner tournaments, but because of their immense popularity and the large variation in playable cards meant that multiple incomplete versions of Jund decks always made it in, and they were always far ahead of everyone else. Sorry if this is a bit ranty, and if my memory is a bit off. 2009-2011 was my “golden age” of playing MTG, and I think most people remember Zendikar fondly - but Jund will always be a sore spot, and a blemish on my otherwise cherished memories.
I played during combo winter- that stupid engine kept morphing into new forms until just about every piece was gone. Time Spiral and Windfall swapped over to Dream Halls and Mind over Matter, then over to Cloud of Faeries Memory Jar and Equilibrium. Really wasn't a lot of fun knowing from the turn 1 island or Academy that you were on like a 4 turn clock.
I can see why strong/common decks can drive attendance of magic tournaments and the like down. I remember going to an FNM during Khans and playing 5/5 games against mono-red aggro. The deck was fast, hard, and cost a grand total of $15, almost entirely made of commons/uncommons. It just wasn't fun. I dont think I have been to an FNM since, but instead graduated to the tables at the back with my fellow Commanders, reminiscing about the meta 'back in (insert starting clock here)'
I haven't played for 24 years, I am 38. I remember playing in a Type 1 tournament (Vintage now, right?). There I went with my Stompy... to a Type 1. So in the morning I played 3 and went 2-0, 2-,0, 2-0... In the afternoon got matched with the best decks from the morning.... and there I had to face in a row two Tolarian Academy decks xD But because of Type 1... moxes, lotus, time warps, everything... They destroyed me 0-2, 0-2, and last was an agro that also was 0-2. Back the time I knew the deck was powerful as f. But I find consolation now knowing that for some it is the actual best deck ever. The upside is the second defeat was so fast I asked if we could play for fun, exchanging decks... to play all those sexy sexy cards. Oh boy, he agreed. Clockwork Beauty. Great video, thanks!
100% agree with Affinity driving players out of Magic. I stopped playing when it came out.
with my black blue splash red wizard deck i had i beat psycho tog affinity and tooth and nail with easy mode and (sleigh) this deck would eather go to time i end up wining or be a draw the deck was just time-wasting deck
Remember the elfnail vs. affinity times in standard 😅
I won a local tournament with affinity back when mirrodin came out, then i lost all the interest in magic and sold everything!
love the air quotes on "took a break"
+Renfield286 xD
+TheManaSource Well, I'll have you know my break didn't start until 2 blocks after that. when guildpact came in (i think that was the last prerelease i did pre innstrad block)
I was going to say. I took a break then. Lol
No, I also "took a break" but that was down to the group i played with imploding and not being bothered with spending money on something I wasnt using.
@TheManaSource, Hi my favorite decks of all time are:
4) 1997 The original Palinchron deck designed by Blake Quelle.
3) 1999 Parallax deck using the Urza's block
2) 2002 the original Madness deck that competed against psychatog
1) 1997 the original 'sligh' deck using the tempest block
Why did he not bring up the vintage flash hulk combo that literally wins before your opponent has drawn their first card by playing gemstone caverns, tapping for blue, discarding a spirit guide to flash hulk then tutor one carrion feeder, four disciples and any amount of cmc 0 artifact creatures which you instant sac to kill your opponent.
+emanuel nelsson vedung the gemstone caverns version is literally all combo pieces and is far less consistent than the kiki version or the disciple version.
Except the gemstone version had an average win rate of turn .75, half the deck were different ways of getting the combo. You could literally spend 10min just in the mulligan phase due to cards that let you do a free mulligan.
You don't need Feeder. You just got 4 Disciple and the rest was 5+ 0 mana 0/0 creatures. When you were on the draw, you just had a Hearth Sliver and 4 Virulent Slivers to poison 12 on turn 1
y'all forgetting that vintage is a shitty nonformat that people play don't even pay attention anymore
So where is Birdemic, the deck in which Storm Crow showed up for the first time? The deck was so brutal 70% of standard players conceded to the power of birds
Oh wait, i messed something up...
Stephen hawking died :(
But could any of these decks beat Exodia?
Flash Hulk had another version that technically could win vefore the gsme even started. So, yes. Even if you got a Turn one consistent win with Exodia AND YOU WENT FIRST, Flash Hulk could STILL win before turn order even technically started.
@@User__Not__Found but you can draw all pieces of exodia in opening hand
I keep thinking about whether or not I could pull my blue eyes white dragon then I remember Im playing magic
@@User__Not__Found In Yugioh, Instant Win Conditions doesn't even enter "the stack" (in Yugioh terms, doesn't start a chain) so if you happen to draw the 5 pieces of Exodia in your starting hand, if we apply the Yugioh logic of Instant Win conditions to Magic, not even Flash Hulk has a chance. Instant Win conditions just happen, instantly of course, and no response is allowed.
exodia does not trigger.
so it does not start a chain.
you just need to reveal the pieces to win the game.
btw, exodia decks always sucked, not even one could pull up a consistent build to draw full exodia in a way that does not die to a single ash blossom or droll&lock bird.
funny I was heavy in tournament magic from odyssey to kamigawa and I remember that the biggest complaints on affinity was that the average player could spend 50 bucks and build a competitive deck and there 450 to 500 dollar deck was getting beat. I thought it was so funny watching the magic elites get butt hurt. and they were the folks that left the game. they wanted to dominate through money not skill. and as I recall big red burn completely destroyed affinity at worlds. and it was just as cheap of a build.
this
+Charles Allen This is so true. I did love that decks with mostly cheap rares, uncommons and commons were affordable and if you wanted to actually win, you could. Financially, magic was in a good spot unlike these days.. Zzzzz
Charles Allen lol at the implication that piloting affinity decks required "skill"
Only affinity decks were cheap, nothing else, so no, magic wasn't affordable, they just couldn't calculate the impact of the cards being released.
The meta was almost affinity-only, and the previous metas almost had no artifacts. Affinity meta was just lame, and a lot of people stopped playing there (I did).
Ehm, you are not talking about the skullclamp affinity like he does in the list guys.... Skullclamp was banned like 2 months after it come out and was just a card that should never been printed (it got banned in extended too, the old modern)
So yeah affinity totally deserve to be there, you don't know the nightmares of that few months.
Off top of my head I remember smokestack deck , the tangled wire deck and pyschotog deck as being rough but to me the toughest will always be winters orb/ icy manipulator deck.
Necropotence and icy/orb lock taught me how to play competitively, by far the 5 color green deck with armageddon/tradewind rider lock i played back in the day was the most powerful deck i built. Pyschatog was a fun deck too. I stopped playing years ago but pretty sure my brother still has Affinity put together.
Hope you enjoy the video!
This begins my road to redemption! This week we'll be releasing videos every single day in addition to our normal spoiler coverage for Shadows Over Innistrad.
Thanks for being understanding. TOP 10 HYPE! ^.^
Happy to see you back wedge!!! hope all is well. looking forward to your Soi hype!
wb man! I'm looking forward to the vids!
+TheManaSource OMG! Disciple of the Vault + Hangarback Walker + Nantuko Husk oh my!
+TheManaSource Woo! That more than makes up for it, hype!
+TheManaSource Great stroll, Wedge! I vividly remember facing some of these classic decks--even piloted the Fires of Yavimaya one myself. I pushed through the Academy days, but my "break" after Black Summer lasted almost ten years. Now I'm one of the old guard at FNMs, regaling the young ones with tales of survival and homebrewing like I'm Aemon Targaryen at the Wall. Honestly, I must say, it's great to be playing Magic again.
Protean hulk is still a deck (in modern) , Footsteps of the goryo on the hulk-> Get viscera seer+ body double which copies hulk -> Grab mog fanatic and reveillark. Sac reveillark to get back a body double which copies reveillark. Infinite damage.
OMG!!! YOU BROUGHT SO MANY AMAZING MEMORIES THAT FILL ME WITH JOY BY WATCHING THIS AMAZING VIDEO !!! MAGIC!!!! MAGIC!!!! SO MUCH MAGIC!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS MOMENT!!!
a top 5 underwhelming cards or top 5 most anticipated cards before a release that did not live up to the hype. at all. gogo
+Per Kristian Antonsen Purely going off my 2 years' standard experience: Bring to Light, Languish, Kozilek's Return, Walker Narset, and Day's Undoing
Thank you for putting up Trix (UB NecroDonate), MonoU Palinchron HighTide. Also worth mentioning is Psychatog dominance in Legacy, Vintage, Standard, and Extended all at the same time. Other mentions: Stax, Survival of the Fittest
I remember one deck, long time ago, but it won almost every GP in its format, the pro tour, etc. it was called Eldrazi
Great list. For a couple honorable mentions here's what comes to my mind: Faeries, Psychatog with Upheaval, U/R Delver w/Treasure Cruise, and at least one or two Storm decks throughout history. Also the dreaded Rebels
Though obviously not as catastrophic in any way as any of these decks, I remember having major issues with Abzan all throughout Tarkir block standard. As opposed to the other decks like mono-red, devotion, dragons, monsters, sultai whip, which all had exploitable weaknesses, Abzan in all its variants only ever had strengths due to all of its cards just being really good and incredibly varied. Tasigur, Charm, Roc, Elspeth, Caryatid, Courser, Anafenza, Urborg, and am I forgetting something? Oh yeah. Skill Rhino - because look at all that skill you have, playing three Rhinos in a row and winning. Mental scary to play against!
+Fergus Ager To this day, when playing casual at the store, I refuse to play people running a playset of Siege Rhino :P
thank you.
Glad you made this video Wedge. It's always sweet looking back on some of the cool card interactions people came up with in the past.
a deck that drove me out of magic manny manny years ago was called turbo stasis. it basicly keeps your oponent out of the game...no fun at all.
+GirlPainting Now I want to see that deck against Eldrazi XD
+Prinny Gamer people that play eldrazi deserve to play against stasis 😈
that was my favorite deck of all time lol
It was the deck that could beat Necropotence.
NO WAY! its you here, I watch your painting tutorials for Warhammer
If you didn't know back in the late 90's, early 00's Extended was what Legacy is today. Then they changed it to the new format you're referring to and everyone hated it because they preferred the old format of Extended.
9:52 I see what you did there? Legendary indeed.
It's pretty obvious all these people who think Eldrazi should be on this list never played during Cawblade format... a LOT of people stopped playing magic for a couple of months because you either built the deck or lost.
Nighthawk98 or never played before cawblade. lets make a list of all cards emergency banned after they stopped using the reserve list. ill be waiting for a while i think...
What about "The Deck."
This is my 5th time watching this video. It became a tradition to remember the history of magic of the most powerful decks it makes me want to make current versions of these decks just to see for fun if they are still viable in certain formats wherever they might be legal in some of which have already proved themselves in eternal formats like legacy or vintage. It would be sweet to see if the list would be updated because of 2019.
I took a break from Saviors of Kamigawa to Time spiral :(... Ravnica is my favorite non Dominarian Plane and Ravnica block is my favorite non dominarian block. Kamigawa killed it for me.
Same
+evileyeball "non dominarian plane" isn't dominaria itself a plane?
Yes I am meaning that Of all the planes which aren't Dominaria Ravnica is my favorite.
The order of planes Must be
Dominaria > Ravnica > Rath > Serra's Relm > Innistrad > Mirrodin > Phyrexia > Tarkir > Zendikar > Theros > New Phyrexia > Lorwyn > Shandalar > Ulgothra > Rabidah
+evileyeball Wow, you must hate Kamigawa and Alara, they didn't even make the top 15.
+evileyeball How is Mirrodin above Zendikar?
I knew about magic for a while before I started playing. I got handed a few cards from friends, but never gave it much thought. This was around jr high or the beginning of high school. When I graduated and went to college, I found a group of people who played magic, and I got into the game to play with them. This was around 2007/2008, and I remember the Lorowyn/Morningtide mini sets being around, but it was the Shards of Alara set that really hooked me. I loved artifacts, and Esper combo control was something I enjoyed playing, even if it wasn't competitive basically at all (at least when I played it).
I started going back in time around this point, looking to get older cards to play more expansive decks and I found Ravager affinity. It was fun, and definitely the kind of deck that when I pulled it out my friends would kind of roll their eyes and be like, "oh, this deck again".
Anyway, I played up until about Innistrad when my interest began to wane. A lot of factors contributed, but I mostly just felt I wasn't good enough and that I spent more time being frustrated than having fun, so I decided it was time to stop. I kept my collection for a while though, and played off and on, but it was mostly things like EDH/Commander and things like that.
I sold my cards later, used the money (worth way less than what it was worth because people suck and people always expect insane price gouging when they buy in bulk) plus a small loan from a friend to buy a PC that I built myself :D I built the PC to play PC games, though I ended up not, similar to how I have a PS4 with games that I've purchased but not played.
I might get back into the card stuff though. I might not play, but I remember having fun collecting them. I love the rush of opening packs and seeing what you get inside. I've been curious about the idea of branching into a bunch of different card games and making a UA-cam channel where I open packs and such. I think it could be fun, even if it never gets popular.
Definitely think modern eldrazi should have been on this, in one of the lower spots
55% of the meta was Eldrazi....so yeah :D
dominate and best is different. if it was dominance then legacy survival would be number one. no deck has been that dominant.
Ben Rubin's Sligh deck was a nice example of the burn deck. I am also partial to the ol counter/burn. Topped off when Isochron Sceptre came out. There was a while it was very frustrating unless you were running counter burn Isos.
Earthcraft and Horseshoe Crab (Enchantress Deck) when Tempest and Urza's Saga Block are still standard legal
I played Extended during the Affinity Era, Green would play 4 Oxidize in the maindeck and multiple Naturalizes in the Sideboard just because the chance of playing vs Affinity was so high
In fact there were Affinity decks that would do the same just so they would win the mirror matchup
it was truly awful
uh, recasting time sprial wasn't the way mana was generated in that deck. You either casted Dream Halls to cast Mind Over Matter or simply use academy's mana to cast mind over matter hard castthen start discarding cards to untap Academy, stroke yourself or windfall to draw more cards, windfall into another stroke into your hand, then finally be able to discard enough cards to stroke your opponent into card draw loss.
Welcome to comments of 2022.
I played the Tolarian Academy deck at a NY state championship in 1998. I finished 8th out of a top 8 that was exclusively academy decks. Surprised you didn't mention Mind over Matter as part of the deck, i thought it was a fairly big piece of the combo. Or maybe that's why i only finished 8th lol.
I recall from that time as well my friend had a fully powered Psychatog deck which basically won all of the Type 1 tournaments for months on end. Thing was brutal.
LOL. So true I totally took and break from magic after Fifth Dawn.
Flash hulk could actually win on the opponent's first upkeep if you went 2nd. Gemstone Caverns + spirit guide (either) = 2 mana for flash so I win before the first main phase starts.
This was the price we paid for the removal of all functional errata (before that, Flash just said to reduce the cost by 2). Right alongside that one was the super 'fun' voltaic key + time vault. Kind of an interesting footnote that also serves as context and should have been included.
Haven't seen the video yet but I'm gonna call it...affinity is somewhere in the top 3
Psiqueatog and The Rock where a pain in the ass back in day in Extended. I also remember giving a hard time to people during Mirrodin standard (funnily enough, I started playing with Mirrodin) with my Krark Clan Ironworks + Myr Incubator/Triskelion+Disciple of the Vault combo. Freaking Tooth and Nails (or Kiki-Jiki + Darksteel Colossus/similar bollocks huge creatures) where also a pain in the ass for quite a while.
Everybody's like "Eldrazi is not in this list?!" "wtf?, Eldrazi is not in this list???".
Hey bro, thanks for the video! I subbed! Some ideas on your lighting situation if you care: uplighting is almost always bad. Natural lighting comes from above, think the sun or interior lights. The light on your right is way too hot, it's blowing out part of your shirt which says a lot. I'd recommend a soft box or some diffusing paper to help with that. Or just move it back 5-10 feet or so.
Regardless, thanks for the upload and the great content!
2019-2020 Magic would like to be included in this list.
I was a kid when Necropotence was The Beast. A local tournament player used to practice against me at our LGS. We played a ton of games, but I only beat him once, got lucky with my mono-red aggro deck, Viashino Sandstalker x3 FTW! Only won because he got screwed and I got perfect starting hand, dead before he could set up.
I said "ban the birds! FIX STANDARD!"
Nope, they banned Jace and Stoneforge
Part of the problem with Affinity was that the Skullclamp ban helped it more than it hurt it. Skullclamp was used by the decks trying to fight Affinity, so the ban hurt them as well, resulting in Affinity being more dominant after the ban then before.
Not bad young one.. you haven't been around long enough.
Balance/Vice was so strong it forced the creation of standard.
+Samuel Newton and the channel fireball. zuran orb and Armageddon was fun also. and just for the memories here is a list of beautiful cards back when this is all we had. Ali from Cairo, Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Icy Manipulator, Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Orcish Oriflamme, Rukh Egg, Sol Ring, Timetwister, Time Vault, and Time Walk
+thomas downey Omg Chanball! :D GedoOrb was (mainly) after standard was created. Hell for its raw power Dingus Egg made the first restricted list. I once had my Atog/Vice (4 copy arts) lost to Lich.. I drew a Disenchant, and hit the Yoti.. this was for a Legs box during laaate Dark, I had never read Lich :( . If you would like some Geddon love... At the end of Urza block (4th was about to rotate out) I went 6-3 with Geddon and all that fat green (mainly rancor) and lost to the guy who won the PTQ. :D
You mean Balance/Rack, not Vise
Samuel Newton these people who started playing after mirridon block have no idea what warped formats are. these old decks are so broken it hurts
Man that was a long time ago but I remember high tide came in to counter Academy decks and consistently beat it due to it's high control elements, academy decks were fairly impotent against it.
Saga and tempest block were my favourite time to play MTG.
Also the deck that I consistently hated going up against was Oath of Druids, that deck in each of it's versions were such a pain to deal with and one of the consistently stronger decks over it's lifespan.
Tempered steel was broken as fuck. So many thopter
Back in 2011 a friend taught me MTG and he had the skull clamp deck. It was his most brutal deck but he gave me some cards and as a noob I built a white/green angel elf deck that start beating him semi consistent. I felt so cool!
Channel+fireball?
And just so you know, I really enjoy these videos. I am still a relatively new player since I've only played for a year and a half and have so much to learn. Out of all the UA-cam Magic players this channel is by far my favorite. Keep it up.
Nice original content you have there
Interesting step back in history, thanks! However, a little surprised/disappointed not to see Prosbloom covered
Totally agree - very surprising to not see Bloom in the list.
And then Eldrazi Aggro happened. XD
JK
God, no please no!
I'm more of an eldrazi ramp player, but that works too
i remember playing in a tournament where jar was legal. it won that tournament! (it was a junior super series at neutral ground in nyc)
*obligatory "hurp derp where's the Eldrazi deck in this list hurr durr derp" comment*
+BuriedFlame Obligatory explanation that Eldrazi is tame compared to a lot of what's going on here.
+American Top_gamer Modern Affinity doesn't have Skullclamp or the artifact lands.
I believe there was a legacy (possibly extended) deck that could win on turn 0 with around a 30% chance (meaning you go first and just win through infinite mana infinite pings) and a 60% chance to win by turn 1.
Its been several years since i've seen the actual deck but it did exist and that was pretty brutal.
that convoluted hulk mess is a best deck? what about hulk/disciple shenanigans?
+kitsunez the hulk disciple version didn't win the gp and it requires far more slots for it's combo pieces than the kiki version making it less consistent.
IdsFear
the combo needs slots but the pieces for the combo don't all need to be in your hand
Having that many combo pieces dilutes the decks power and consistency, you end up drawing the 0 cmc artifacts and disciples instead of draw and counter spells. Having more slots available for draw spells and interactive spells makes it better vs control and smooths the draws out.
I started playing mtg during the caw-blade format at KG in Brooklyn. That deck was definitely a pain to go against as a new player but it never discourage me from playing. I played mono red kuldotha rebirth LOL
Little surprised Rebels and Eldrazi aren't on this list.
+T Cat Rebels was basically a 12th/11th place deck in this list. Very close to top 10, but not better than Fires.
+T Cat You just reminded me of the time I was the only one to draft white in Triple-Mercadian draft. Yes, I trounced. Thank you.
+TheManaSource IMO, if any Modern deck deserves mention it should be Blue Infect from the beginning of the format.
I was looking for a Most Powerful Decks list yesterday and the next day you guys/gals deliver, thanks!
Shocking lack of Modern Eldrazi.
+cfusionpm probably only because the deck isn't banned out yet. Personally, I've always been a fan of hating Standard's Faeries and Modern's Blazing Infect (though tbh, I
+Josh Stanton Yes but that is such a specific case. It does beat Shops, however almost every other Vintage deck shits all over it. The Eldrazi deck is GOOD against shops, that's why it wins. People forget that even though things are in different formats they can still beat other decks they are more powerful than. If eldrazi was really that good we would already see it in Vintage and Legacy, but we don't.
+Ryan Smith It only beats shops because Eldrazi is good against that deck. We aren't seeing Eldrazi play in Vintage or Legacy. Against ANY other vintage deck Eldrazi gets laughably shit on
+SlimDirtyDizzy it's played in legacy quite a bit
American Top_gamer Having a T2 win doesn't mean its consistent. Its an extremely low chance of happening. There is a guy on reddit who has a T2 win with Hedron Alignment. Does that mean its broken?
I remember "Academy Genius" as I heard it refered to, but it was never a problem for my "Academy Control" deck as long as I got the counter drop on them or back to basics down. Though the "Academy Genius" deck was broke as hell, it was one trick pony that could be stopped and regularly defeated.
LONG.DEC is flatly the most powerful deck the game has ever seen. Turn 1 win percentages around 90%, and no mention...
You lose; good day sir.
Lol I remember busting this deck out on Apprentice way back in the day when it first dropped. Just insane.
That's what I came here to hear about. Having played during the Urza block, though, Academy was MUCH more dominant, even though it wasn't as fast (unless you got the Academy - 4 Mox Diamond hand). Long is ten times as strong as anything else on this list, though.
i was in love with mind's desire deck!
I want to see a tourney where everyone only plays these decks.
+clayton leal Actually in that confined setup that would actually be pretty cool i think. Though I fear that
- a: these games would not be as entertaining since these decks don't require much of strategy;
and
- b: that still among these very powerful decks one would just steamroll each of the others, because they were only strong in their respective environment back then.
Tolarian could dominate, but most games will come down to how many force of will you start your hand with.
I'm not sure if other players had problems but around my part of Wisconsin there was a Vintage deck called Keeper that absolutely destroyed everyone for a good six months, probably longer. The deck seemed to have an answer for everything at any given time. I seem to remember anycraze calling it one of the most powerful vintage decks ever built.
Needs 100% moar Tinker!!
I also thought the Fluctuator / Living Death deck was so broken back in 98-99ish. Cycle everything into your graveyard, cast Living Death and your opponent has one turn to wrath the board or they're done.
Not a single Vintage deck, like Workshop, Dredge, Storm?
HOW THE FUCK does this video have a 98% like ratio???
People play Vintage?
Nanofuture87 Funny.
The strength of a deck depends on how powerful it is relative to other decks in the format.
Emrakul, The Aeons Bored "in the format"? Which format is this list limited to and where is it advertised? All I can see is "Most Powerful [...] Decks Of All Time".
And every single deck in this list is basically a JOKE when compared to ANY deck I've mentioned, so...
47Mortuus The format it's in. Any deck is trash if the other decks it can actually be played against are far superior.
Right after Urza's Legacy was released, I built a green/blue deck called elfstroke, that turned my arena league bracket into a bloodbath. I combo'd intruder alarm with greater good, and sac'd racor'd weatherseed treefolk for draw power, and used my elves/birds of paradise to generate mana until I could draw my thoptor squadron, and go infinite. I used stroke of genius as my kill. about 80% of the time, I had a 4th turn kill combo running. I never made it into the arena league major tournaments, primarily because the top 10 players in my bracket wouldn't come anywhere near me with that deck.
Post-mirrodin Hulk flash was usually an even faster combo than the one you outlined. You found 4 Disciple of the Vault, 4 Phyrexian Marauder, and 4 Shifting Wall. The marauder and the wall immediately die to state-based effects since x=0, and then without passing priority your disciples put 32 damage on the stack.
+IVIaskerade Even faster. If you had a spirit guide and a gemstone caverns in your opening hand, as well as flash and hulk, it's gg on the first draw step.
Channel Fireball...
Man, this is what I was thinking. I guess I'm just old. If I remember correctly, they had to change the rules on card limits because of that deck.
I started off when it first began with alpha. the channel/fireball decks were the first dominate decks to win on turn one no matter what. the next dominate decks were the goblin decks. it wasn't until stasis decks that brains over took them all to the current wave of combination wins.
I started during Revised, and stasis decks were the - Kill him now! targets every time LOL
Relentless rats masterdeck!
Also 420th comment
+TheBallisticPepper Smo-smo-smo smoke weed erryday.
There’s a few big ones that happened recently that ate some bans - aetherworks marvel, temur energy, blue white flash, bg delerium and Ramunap Red all saw at least one ban. First standard bans since caw blade, worth a look.
Next should be the 10 worst decks ever :P
totally agree!
60 plains
Green has always been broken.
It makes "ravenous rats" swarm sound innocent by comparison.
Adam Schiedler you just need to watch my decks then... 🙁
Blue: I've got a six Mana 4/5
Green: meet my six Mana 8/8 with trample that can't be countered
As an aside, the tooth and nail deck from Mirrodin standard had a lot to do with skull clamp getting banned. It out performed affinity for a while before the banning
Affinity had far more long term impact across more formats, it also caused another round of bannings, but I remember "elf and nail" quite well and feared it more than affinity at the time
this title is so clickbaity if it was'nt on this channel i wouldnt watch it
+ido m But its exactly what the video is about. Clickbait is the intent to deceive to get views. I'm not deceiving anyone. All of my titles are ALWAYS what the videos are about. Every time. No deception.
i know but it looks like clickbait (top best and what not) but i know you're legit wedge ;)
***** well because its well made, but usually if you see a title like this its clickbait...
+ido m Clickbait would be something like: "We listed the top ten MTG decks ever, and you WON'T BELIEVE which ones we chose" or something along those lines. Titles like the one on this video have existed since before clickbait ever did. Maybe you spend too much time on the internet, and I don't mean that as an insult. The web warps how we see thing. Try avoiding it for one full week. You won't believe how much this remedy can help you!
Uh... Number 7 will surprise you?
Awesome video TMS crew! My suggestion is a Top Ten broken cards by type. Top 10 broken creatures, top 10 broken artifacts, Sorceries and etc!
The Flash Hulk combo deck can work slightly differently, considerably more powerfully and even simpler than how you described it.You can consistently win before your opponent's first draw step by exiling a simian spirit guide or an elvish spirit guide at instant speed then manamorphose it into blue mana for Flash into Protean Hulk (Summoner's pact if necessary). sacrifice the hulk and go to search 4 disciple of the vault, 4 phyrexian marauder and 4 shifting wall. The marauders and the walls all die because they have no +1/+1 counters, triggering each disciple eight times, killing your opponent before their first turn at instant speed. I was not around during this period so that might not be the way most people played it but I was just pointing out that there was another way.
Maybe it was just my playgroup, but there was this deck that just wrecked back around Kamigawa block. It was U/R Land Destruction, and by using Eye to Nowhere/Boomerang along with stone rain it could lock you out of the game. This thing on the play was nuts. Turn two, they'd go, and bounce your land, then start destroying it until turn three. Finally they'd crush you with a powerful Magnivore. The deck was nuts.
If you do another of these, I really hope you talk about it.
+seismicsmasher Because this, this was the deck that killed magic for me for awhile.
I will say this, during the Thopter Depths era there was a Midrange Zoo list that you could use that beat the crap out of Depths. Celestial Purge hurt almost every deck that was not also Zoo. I ran it at multiple local events and lost to random jank but absolutely crushed every Thopter Depths list I ran against. I always thought that was a trigger pulled too quickly.
My peak of MTG playing was during the Mirrodin block. I had a ton of fun with krark klan ironworks. Get a manavault and burn through an entire deck on turn 2. Ironworks+free cast affinity creatures+skullclamp+disciple of the vault.
I still use aether vials. too good.
I was there on the front lines during Affinity; Wizards tried to self-balance the deck with cards like Hum of the Radix and Rebuking Ceremony - but since most Affinity decks hit there stride turn three and killed you turn four you were usually too late to do anything.
I feel with cards like Fates Forgotten, Unravel the Aether and Dismember, Affinity wouldn't have been so bad - but hindsight is 20/20 and all that....
My brother once had a deck which put 1/1 for tapping an elf into play and another card which untaps it for 2 Mana.
I always quit playing when he had a third card which gave 1 mana per elf for infinite tokens with an ability loop.
i'm just coming back to magic after last playing the mirrodin block. despite what you say, i had good fun playing my broodstar affinity at the time, i stopped because the block that followed was less interesting and shortly after the more 'modern' print was trialed and unappealing to me. i wish i could find some vintage / legacy players near me to dust off my old frogmites haha
I took a break after Mirrodin set as well. It was a long break, lasting till now.
the decline in active players from mirrodin block to kamigawa block was LEGENDARY!!!Was that by accident? I think not!
One deck that i thought was a top contender for its time was Jund in the Alara/Zen Standard. Everything from Maelstrom Pulse, to Bloodbraid Elf, Broodmate Dragon, Terminate, Bolt. It was so good.
@TheManaSource. What about the Cadaverous Bloom deck. Prosperity, City of Solitude, which prevents players from countering anything you do. You could do a ridiculous Drain Life with the combo of those 3 cards.
I used to play Dragonstorm that deck was insane into anything but control, it was insanely fun i remember winning a 2-head giant by myself because my teammate disconnected on mtgo... My favorite combo deck is a deck i invented but it was honestly too slow i just really loved it, it ran very little lands and played rally the horde and in the web of war, bascially by turn 4-6 i could get all the land out of my deck cast rally the horde and swing for sometimes crazy amounts of damage, it was not amazing but i had never seen it run and i made it up, i didn't know anyone on mtgo who had a deck like it, that was a big deal to me and i loved it.
'98 / '99 was when I quit playing for quite a long time...Morale was indeed low...(I no longer play now due to the ridiculous cost of cards...but I still like to watch stuff on it.)
possumverde buy magic duels on xbox 1 or your phone.
possumverde seriously, the standard format to consitently have tier 1 decks always a couple hundred dollars. Ridiculous...
possumverde yo download lackeyccg its a free game on pc were u have access to every mtg card i play on there :D
If you adjust for inflation the game is cheaper now, I remember having an extended Tinker deck around 2001 and it was around 400 USD, top deck with very expensive cards. Now I think a top modern decks goes over 700 easily.
Ha ha ha, you're 100% right, most of the (old school) players stopped playing around Mirrodin, including me. I hated that block. But they obviously didn't learn the lession, as they put up Kaladesh and AR, which is even more broken.
There was also one Red burner Mirrodin\Dark Steel deck, that literally could kill you on turn 2-3. I don't remember the card name, but it involved some artifact combo for 1 or 0 drop, which made red mana on tap based on something (number of artifacts maybe?), which gives you XX mana on will. Then you use that to drop some red creature, which isn't too big, but it has "for 1 red mana, sacrifice an artifact and deal 2 damage to creature\player"? So, you drop lots of artifacts on turn 2 (which you could, due to "affinity"), then nuke the hell out of your opponent on turn 3 for like 20-30 damage.
This is why lot of people, especially those who played from earlier blocks stopped playing. It wasn't about strategy and deck building anymore, it was about who plays first and who drops that card first. There were several BS decks like that that were virtually unstoppable.
Oh yeah, and blue controls with Platinum Angel, and those "Tooth and Nail" decks that drop you two Darksteel Colossus on maybe turn 4 due to some mana ramps. Good luck, have fun.
As for the list, great! I'm surprised 'Tog wasn't on there but I guess that was more just a kick-ass archetype as opposed to something that warped formats beyond recognition.
prosperbloom was another deck that was dominant and caused squandered resources to get block banned. but since I've been playing since September 96, I remember most of these decks. insanity..... thanks for the blast from the past Wedge. see you next time
I do like that you attribute Memory Jar's ban to Combo Winter and not to Jar decks being busted. Yes, Jar was plenty busted back in the day, but the context was more important here. Academy had dominated for months, and Wizards thought they had fixed things when they banned out the cards that made that period of time absurd. But along came Memory Jar and Tinker in Urza's Legacy, and Randy Buehler and Eric Lauer decided to bring the deck to an Extended tournament. They both Top 8ed, and Wizards realized that Jar decks threatened to bring more of the same for the next few months, losing even more players than they had during Academy's legality.
I also notice no mention of Mind Over Matter for Academy. Wasn't that how Academy decks generated the mana for Stroke in Standard?
I mean, I get what Cawblade did to standard, but I personally never had any problems with it. I dunno if the people I played with just did't know how to deal with Mass Polymorph, or if the deck just had a good matchup, but I generally just ran roughshod over them with a deck that probably cost around $20 without the fetches. Actually, I remember the time surrounding Caw Blade to be pretty good (for me). In that time frame, I went from playing Warp World, to Standard Dredge to (the aforementioned) Mass Polymorph. So many great, quirky decks.
Great vid, really informative for the years -it seems- I was happy to miss ;)
This was an interesting video, great decks and cards showcased that I never heard about. Bottom line what I learned from this video and deck superiority, when in doubt -- ALWAYS go blue. Seriously I swear blue is the broken color in MTG. I've been playing casually since I was around 14. Didn't start playing standard competitive until Return to Ravnica - Theros, I learned so much more about the game, in addition to having been playing MTG installments in the XBOX 360 during that time as well... I'd have to say Esper control at the time was insanely ridiculous. That was a real power house deck, Elspeth generating the tokens, detention sphere, dimir based counters, just pure hand disruption, control, early game removals/kill spells, Ashiok, and counters paving the way for Elspeth.
Then of course Theros with Khans, I'd have to say Abzan slayed mercilessly. Sidisi whip deck when running properly was nasty and hilariously fun to play. I'm not sure which deck ultimately shined here within that standard format.
Now todays standard and meta I've been out for several months. Going to get back into it soon with Amonkhet coming, I forsee Amonkhet akin to the Theros block just more Egyptian flavored. Always enjoyed Egyptian mythos so yeah
memory jar was legal in extended for 3 weeks and crushed everything. Randy Buehler took to it a GP and did quite well with the brokenness of that card
Jund in Alara/Zendikar. Sure it could be beaten, there were
many other decks which consistently made it into top 8, eg.: Naya, Vampires,
Turbofog, some variations of Boros/RDW agro, and of course Gabriel Nassif's
legendary 5-color control, but the problem for me was the overwhelming volume
of Jund decks in play.
Everybody and their mother ran a full set of Bloodbraid
Elves, from there all you need is a solid serving of RB removal and damage spells, some
persistent RBG creatures like Thrinax and Broodmate, and you are rolling Jund.
While in high-tier tournaments expensive and powerful decks
could hold their own, still over half of the decks being played were Jund.
Where it got really egregious and disheartening was in low-tier/local/beginner
tournaments, where younger players often ran off-meta decks or incomplete ones
(missing fetch lands or having only 1-3 copies of expensive cards). There could
easily be 6 Jund decks in top 8 in such a tourney, and it drove people away en
masse. Tourney organizers tried to limit popular meta decks entering their beginner
tournaments, but because of their immense popularity and the large variation in
playable cards meant that multiple incomplete versions of Jund decks always
made it in, and they were always far ahead of everyone else.
Sorry if this is a bit ranty, and if my memory is a bit off.
2009-2011 was my “golden age” of playing MTG, and I think most people remember
Zendikar fondly - but Jund will always be a sore spot, and a blemish on my
otherwise cherished memories.
I played during combo winter- that stupid engine kept morphing into new forms until just about every piece was gone. Time Spiral and Windfall swapped over to Dream Halls and Mind over Matter, then over to Cloud of Faeries Memory Jar and Equilibrium. Really wasn't a lot of fun knowing from the turn 1 island or Academy that you were on like a 4 turn clock.
I can see why strong/common decks can drive attendance of magic tournaments and the like down. I remember going to an FNM during Khans and playing 5/5 games against mono-red aggro. The deck was fast, hard, and cost a grand total of $15, almost entirely made of commons/uncommons. It just wasn't fun. I dont think I have been to an FNM since, but instead graduated to the tables at the back with my fellow Commanders, reminiscing about the meta 'back in (insert starting clock here)'
I haven't played for 24 years, I am 38. I remember playing in a Type 1 tournament (Vintage now, right?). There I went with my Stompy... to a Type 1. So in the morning I played 3 and went 2-0, 2-,0, 2-0... In the afternoon got matched with the best decks from the morning.... and there I had to face in a row two Tolarian Academy decks xD But because of Type 1... moxes, lotus, time warps, everything... They destroyed me 0-2, 0-2, and last was an agro that also was 0-2.
Back the time I knew the deck was powerful as f. But I find consolation now knowing that for some it is the actual best deck ever.
The upside is the second defeat was so fast I asked if we could play for fun, exchanging decks... to play all those sexy sexy cards. Oh boy, he agreed. Clockwork Beauty.
Great video, thanks!